


Rules of Engagement

by Saucery



Series: Napkin Stories [4]
Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: Affection, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Anger Management, Angst, Awkward Sexual Situations, Bed Sex, Biblical References, Boredom, Bottom!Napoleon, Casual Sex That Turns Out To Be NOT CASUAL AT ALL, Complicated Relationships, Control Issues, Dare, Drama, Emotional Manipulation, Explicit Sexual Content, Extended Metaphors, Fingerfucking, Flirting, French Kissing, Frottage, Gentleman Bastards, Gentleness, Guilt, Height Differences, Height Kink, Humor, Intense, Kissing, Loss of Control, Love/Hate, Lust, M/M, Making Out, Napoleon Is Bored And Horny, Opposites Attract, Overly Lyrical Descriptions of Sex, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Porn, Post-Coital Angsting, Power Dynamics, Power Play, Quickies, Regret, Resolved Sexual Tension, Romance, Roughness, Sassy, Seduction, Shame, Size Difference, Size Kink, Slutty Napoleon, Smut, Snark, Sneakiness, Spies & Secret Agents, Starts Out Fun But Turns Serious, Strength Kink, Surprise Angst, Taunting, This Spells Disaster For One Illya Kuryakin, Top!Illya, Twisted and Fluffy Feelings, Wall Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-03
Updated: 2015-09-03
Packaged: 2018-04-18 18:45:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,925
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4716617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saucery/pseuds/Saucery
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Napoleon taunts Illya into making out. That’s the plan, anyway, but it goes further than he expects.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rules of Engagement

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Правила боя](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8288842) by [Slavyanka](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Slavyanka/pseuds/Slavyanka)



* * *

 

They were in a charming little cottage in Tuscany, waiting for their contact to arrive, and Napoleon was bored out of his mind. Gaby was out fixing the car of a handsome aristocrat, whose heart she would inevitably break when he discovered that it was the car, not the aristocrat, that she was smitten with, but Napoleon had found no similar distraction.

Unless…

Illya was here, too. Leaning over the tiny kitchen table in a tacky tourist’s T-shirt, and studying a map of Italy with a singular, _fiery_ attention. Attention that would be so much more enjoyable were it fixed on Napoleon.

So Napoleon ambled toward him, and smirked Smirk No. 21, by far his favorite from his admittedly impressive repertoire, because it was guaranteed to irritate Illya in ways that made the corners of Illya’s thin, mobile mouth pinch like a petulant child’s.

“What?” Illya asked, when Napoleon’s shadow fell across the map on the table.

“I don’t mean to be rude, but—your rage is really quite adorable.”

Illya glared at him. “ _What._ ”

“See? That. That’s adorable. The gradual, growling enunciation. The bared teeth. The narrowed eyes. Meanwhile, your hands are shaking like you’re actually afraid of your own anger, or like it’s covering up for something else. You couldn’t hurt me if you had to.”

Illya rose from his slouch. Slowly. His tall, strong frame unfurled like a map of its own, a map Napoleon hungered to explore. With his tongue. “I couldn’t hurt you, you say?”

Oh, that voice. Tight, vicious, rough as a fist in one’s hair. Tangling. Pulling.

Napoleon obediently swayed forward. And murmured: “Just try it, Peril.”

Illya moved, lightning-fast, and slammed Napoleon against the wall.

Napoleon grinned up at him. “Yes, and?” He tilted his chin up, a gesture that bared his throat, that exposed the lines of sinew that slanted down to his collarbones, which were invitingly naked beneath the shirt that he’d unbuttoned the first few buttons of, in concession to the afternoon warmth. “That wasn’t especially painful.”

Illya did nothing, for a long moment, except stare, and stare, and _stare_ at Napoleon’s lips. “Damn you,” he said.

Napoleon chuckled. “Still waiting, buddy.”

Illya shook him. Violently. It rattled Napoleon, but didn’t so much as sprain his neck. Which, given that Illya was a trained killer and a professional neck-snapper, showed an extraordinary amount of care. How careless Illya liked to pretend he was. How wrathful. A bloodhound. A berserker. But this secret gentleness, that he sought so desperately to hide, was irresistible. Precisely because he was so desperate to hide it. “Do you _want_ me to injure you?”

“The question is, are you capable of injuring me?”

An emotion very like anguish twisted Illya’s expression, and Napoleon felt a brief twinge of guilt, for forcing Illya to admit to this weakness, this incapacity, this vulnerability. Illya so hated being vulnerable. Pity that Napoleon loved it when he was.

Any second, now, Illya was going to leave him starved and unfulfilled, propped stupidly against the wall, abandoned to his own devices. Any second—

But then, Illya kissed him. Hard.

Hard and filthy and _wet_ , until Napoleon was hot and shuddery all over, melting despite his best intentions to be composed and taunting for a while more. Illya bit his jaw, not enough to break the skin, but Napoleon yearned to be broken. To be made to bleed.

Perhaps he was already bleeding, from his heart, from a strange and deadly internal wound, because his blood was filling him up, flooding his veins, rising like a fever or a rush of alcohol, flushing him from head to toe.

Ten minutes or hours or centuries later, Napoleon’s knees were quaking, and the smooth-shaven face he had so conscientiously moisturized that morning was all but abraded by Illya’s uncouth stubble. Illya’s hands were tugging Napoleon’s shirt out of his pants, because Napoleon’s own hands had apparently gone useless, robbed of their usual skill, clinging to Illya’s criminally broad shoulders as a man might cling to the edge of a cliff.

Napoleon was about to fall. A fall that would shatter him completely, inside and out, but he thrilled to it, his hips arching, his thighs sagging open.

“Fuck,” Illya groaned, grinding his clothed erection against Napoleon’s crotch. Illya skimmed gun-callused fingertips up and under Napoleon’s shirt, grazing his back, before dropping to grip Napoleon’s ass. Spreading it. The stretch strained the fabric of Napoleon’s fine silk trousers, such that they threatened to rip along the seams.

Napoleon grunted. “Th-that,” he stuttered, “that doesn’t count as hurting me.”

Illya _lifted_ him, just like that, effortless as an oiled machine, a bunching of his biceps all that was needed to carry Napoleon’s not inconsiderable weight to the nearest bedroom, which was Napoleon’s. “Oh, it will, Cowboy,” Illya grated out. “It will.”

Napoleon shivered. He wrapped his legs around Illya’s waist as the trousers slipped down his calves and slid off his socked feet. He was gasping, dizzy with lust, and it was delicious, how predictable Illya was, how easy to rouse, how biddable. It was unfortunate that they didn’t have this entire week in the Tuscan countryside to themselves, to thoroughly debauch each other, to…

The wind was knocked out of Napoleon when Illya tossed him onto the bed, and was knocked out of him again when Illya landed atop him, abruptly nude, a coil of scorching muscle like that of a whip’s, Illya’s sinewy body all firm, flexing pectorals and cruel perfection. Illya’s abs rippled as he curved over Napoleon, and the miracle of it was that it managed to be more protective than predatory.

Illya still wasn’t hurting him.

And he didn’t, not even with Napoleon’s shirt rucked up around his armpits and Illya mouthing at his nipples, not even with Napoleon’s squat bottle of lube spilling on the bedside table and Illya’s slick fingers buried in him, all the way to the knuckle, sinking deep into Napoleon as if seeking his very soul.

Every time Napoleon’s spine jolted upward, every time he moaned, Illya hushed him. Comforted him. Through the haze of sweat and, hell, _tears_ that obscured Napoleon’s vision, he saw Illya’s features contort into something resembling regret, into something resembling guilt, like he was failing at a mission he had assigned himself, like he was harming Napoleon and couldn’t forgive himself for it.

Illya looked ruined. Utterly ruined. 

Ah. Ah, that was—

“Please,” Napoleon slurred. He scarcely comprehended it when Illya’s fingers withdrew, an aching, incomprehensible loss that had him whining, that had him scrabbling futilely at Illya, but suddenly, Illya was _in_ him, entering him. It was an exquisite, agonizing, endless burn that pierced Napoleon to his core, that took him apart, that left him shocked and stunned and quivering.

It went on, and on, and on. Rolling wave after wave of molten heat, flames licking at Napoleon’s consciousness, reducing him to ash.

“Breathe,” Illya said, in Russian and then in jagged, mangled English, and his palms were cupping Napoleon’s cheeks, his thumbs stroking Napoleon’s cheekbones. He appeared sad and wild at once, like he was losing what he valued the most, but was simultaneously losing himself in it, and sorrow had never seemed so lovely or so tender.

Napoleon came, somewhere between Illya kissing his temples and rocking into him, and Illya’s words were a hoarse, wrecked whisper in his ear.

“You,” Illya was saying, “ _you_ want to hurt _me_.”

Napoleon sobbed, because it was true. He held Illya and held him and held him, even though his arms shook, even though it was wrong and perverse to give Illya this semblance of shelter when all Napoleon wished to do was strip Illya of his masks, and destroy the pretenses that saved Illya from who he was, from who they both were.

When Illya slumped over him, spent, Napoleon gazed blearily up at the ceiling. The rustic wooden logs that supported the roof were sturdier than they had any right to be, when Illya, who should’ve been sturdy, was so helpless, so disarmed. Illya’s nose was pressed against Napoleon’s sodden hair, and Napoleon was grateful for it, for the fact that neither of them could see the other.

That Napoleon couldn’t see Illya’s defeat.

And that Illya couldn’t see Napoleon’s victory, the horrid, wonderful, incandescent pleasure that no doubt had him glowing, that had him embracing Illya like a lover rather than an enemy. A vanquished enemy, bloodied and beautiful. Samson, foolishly unmanned by Delilah.

Did all their games have to be so brutal? All Napoleon had expected, honestly, was a spot of harmless fun. And yet, he couldn’t bring himself to repent his actions, or their unforeseen consequences. In a life of sinning, repenting was not a talent he’d had the opportunity to hone. No, instead he had honed himself, like a pocket-knife, a sly and hidden thing, uncurling like a talon from a velvety paw. Snagging the innocent, erring flesh of those that wandered within its reach.

Eventually, Illya raised himself onto his elbows and sat up, turning away from Napoleon. His back was a mess of scars, knotted like the trunk of a mighty, felled tree. Napoleon touched those scars lightly, but Illya flinched, so Napoleon retreated.

This was awkward.

Napoleon coughed delicately. He’d been awful, but Illya had been gorgeous, and surely that combination of awful and gorgeous had brought them to a safe middle-ground, betwixt the two extremes?

“Graziani will be here by sundown,” Illya said, in an uneven rasp, extracting a box of matches from his discarded jeans and lighting a cigarette in an audible puff of bitter smoke. “Get dressed and act decent. If you can.”

“I’m more refined than you are, Peril.”

“Refinement is not decency,” Illya retorted, and stood, in a mesmerizing cascade of movements that highlighted the contours of his enviable soldier’s physique.

Napoleon made a pitiful noise as Illya put on his clothes, as that flawless physique was concealed beneath Illya’s ugly, undeserving, frustratingly loose T-shirt. A tailored suit would’ve done Illya justice, but his assumed identity was that of an uncultured tourist, so T-shirts it was. “Might I point out that Graziani is our contact, and if indecency appeals to him, that is exactly what I will use?”

Illya’s crushed the matchbox in his grasp, and threw it unerringly into the bin. “Yes,” he said, distantly. “You are an expert at using, aren’t you?”

Ouch. There was a compliment that sounded like an insult. Possibly, an insult that sounded like a compliment.

Napoleon stretched, allowing his eyelids to drift shut, because Illya wouldn’t pause to appreciate Napoleon if he could be caught indulging in that appreciation, and Napoleon required appreciation, post-coitus. He always did.

“Shameless,” Illya muttered, and his footsteps clomped out of the room, heavy and somehow stubborn, as if daring Napoleon to seduce him again, to make those footsteps falter, to tempt them to return to the bed.

Or maybe Napoleon was deluding himself. Maybe Illya had been the one who’d seduced him. Turnabout was only fair, given that Illya, who’d set out to master Napoleon, had been mastered instead. They’d exchanged favors. Or punishments. It was a matter of interpretation, wasn’t it?

Napoleon _interpreted_ himself out of his sensual lassitude and into vaguely proper professionalism, getting ready and doing up all his shirt’s buttons, this time. Illya’s jealousy was as adorable as his rage, but Napoleon knew better than to poke a viper twice in the same day.

A different day, however…

That remained to be seen.

 

* * *

**fin.**

**Author's Note:**

> Like my writing? Want updates and sneak previews? Follow me on [Tumblr](http://saucefactory.tumblr.com/)!


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